The English Assassin

Israeli art restorer and occasional secret agent Gabriel Allon has a problem A prominent Swiss banker has called him to Switzerland to restore his Raphael The problem is that Allon finds the banker dead in front of his Raphael, and he s the prime suspect After some diplomatic intervention, Allon is freed However, the banker s daughter, wracked by guilt, tells him thatIsraeli art restorer and occasional secret agent Gabriel Allon has a problem A prominent Swiss banker has called him to Switzerland to restore his Raphael The problem is that Allon finds the banker dead in front of his Raphael, and he s the prime suspect After some diplomatic intervention, Allon is freed However, the banker s daughter, wracked by guilt, tells him that her father s cache of French Impressionist paintings, acquired under dubious circumstances during the Second World War, has been stolen by the murderers Once Allon knows about the banker s wartime misdeeds, he attracts the attention of a secret Swiss organization dedicated to suppressing knowledge of all such crimes, and he is pursued by a shadowy killer known only as the Englishman.

The English Assassin Israeli art restorer and occasional secret agent Gabriel Allon has a problem A prominent Swiss banker has called him to Switzerland to restore his Raphael The problem is that Allon finds the banker de

1 thought on “The English Assassin”

A Wonderful Surprise - 5 Stars My expectations were low going into this novel. I read the first in the series in 2013 and honestly I have completely forgotten the plot. The first story felt tired and average. Quite unexpectedly, the second book in the series blew me away and kept me interested from the start. Plot The world's most deadly art restorer is called into action when the Israeli government is contacted by Swiss banker who has some information he wishes to share. Sensing that there some [...]

"Since when is it a crime in Switzerland to talk?"“The English Assassin” is the second novel in the series by Daniel Silva that follows the adventures of ex Israeli agent (and art restorer) Gabriel Allon. This text has given me no reason to stop reading the series.I am sure the series is a bit formulaic, it is becoming obvious even in book # 2 (there are 17 books in this series as of today) but that is to be expected with the genre. And I could do without the hero having a fling with the fem [...]

Again being the forever optimist I started reading the English "assassin" by Daniel Silva as a follow-up to his first book in the series about 'Israeli secret agent' Gabriel Allon. Mr. Silva's writing style is very ingenuous and descriptive and despite several lackluster plot scenes in the first book I wanted to give the series another shot. Not good! What followed in this book is Gabriel attempting to unravel some of Switzerland's most influential high-power political elite which had Nazi-affil [...]

In this second installment of the Gabriel Allon series we find our sensitive and scarred spy taking on the Swiss bankers who helped the Nazis during WWII and are still hiding old Jewish money and treasure under the boardwalks of Zurich. As in the first novel, "The Kill Artist (Gabriel Allon)", the reluctant Israeli spy Gabriel Allon is joined by a world famous woman, this time though she is a violinist named Anna Rolfe, on his adventures. As in his previous novels, Mr. Silva brings back characte [...]

To me there have always been two classes of thrillers : 1. Too much carnage and mayhem : Where the key figures in the plot line go, bodies drop like flies swatted out of the air and things tend to get destroyed. The factor of disinterest that I have in such a genre is that the mind goes numb to all this damage.2. The silent,subtle kind of a thriller : Not much of a noise & the plot drives the adrenaline rush through the reader's veins. Needless to say it requires the steady hands of a season [...]

Some of my friends mentioned Daniel Silva, so I thought I'd give him a shot with The English Assassin. The title had a certain ring to it. I would say my thoughts on this are mixed. As far as the plot goes, very compelling, but to me, there was a lot going on and so the story seemed to jump around. I am okay with jumping around from place to place, but timeline wise, I got lost and there were several chapters that went by before one chapter that introduced something was resolved, hence the timel [...]

A very enjoyable fast paced spy thriller. The story centres around the Swiss bankers who colluded with the Nazis to smuggle works of art stolen from Jewish families out of Germany during WWII.Gabriel Allon is an Israeli spy introduced during an earlier novel, but this book can be read as a stand alone. He is trained as an art restorer and uses this as his cover. He becomes involved in the affair when he is invited to restore a painting for a Swiss banker and walks in to his clients home to find [...]

Another great story by Daniel Silva. This time Gabriel Allon finds himself in some trouble in Switzerland. The main topic being Switzerland's cooperation and trading with Nazi Germany during the Second World War and profiting immensely from it. Gabriel really has a hard time with this one but things end well with the help of an unlikely ally. It seems there's more than one assassin with a conscience.

ENLIGHTENING PAGE TURNERWhat I liked most about "The English Assasin" in terms of entertainment was its unrelentless action, chapter after chapter and of course its underlying message.This very riveting fast paced novel begins when Israeli Mossad agent and art restorer by profession, Gabriel Allon, is assigned to go to Switzerland, to restore a painting of a very rich Swiss art billonaire and found that this man has been murdered at his residenceThe dead man holds a secret that will be unveiled [...]

Daniel Silva- The English Assassin (Signet Books 2003) 3.25 StarsFormer Israeli spy, now turned art restorer, Gabriel Allon is being tossed back into a past he left behind. In Zurich, Switzerland he is called to restore a painting for a rich banker only to discover the banker dead. Framed for the murder he must dig through old Nazi history and Switzerland’s past connections to the old regime. Going against him is the English Assassin, someone he trained.The introduction was pretty good. It got [...]

3.5/5 I first read about the Holocaust in Daniel Silva's lesser known but his best book according to me - "The Confessor". It was also my first book by the author and quite different from the other Gabriel Allons, with the theme of the Church's guilty conscience in refusing sanctuary to Jews. And a bold ending.Nobel laureate Mohammad Yunus's autobiography is called "Banker to the Poor". He is known for inventing micro-finance and alleiviating poverty in Bangladesh thru Grameen bank. I think a Sw [...]

Switzerland’s famous “neutrality” during World War II was, at best, imperfect and, at worst, an outright sham. Historians continue to argue the extent to which the Swiss government aided and abetted Hitler’s Third Reich, but some things are certain: improprieties did, indeed, take place. (historyisnowmagazine/b)The banks of Switzerland, to this day, aid and abet criminals by providing safe havens that are immune to foreign government seizure. Everyone from drug cartels to Wall Street CEO [...]

In his second book of the Gabriel Allon series, Daniel Silva takes us to Switzerland. Gabriel has been sent on a supposed art restoration assignment to the home of private banker Augustus Rolfe in Zurich, only to find the man dead. As it turns out, Rolfe had requested the Israeli espionage office to send him a representative, so Gabriel had been dispatched by his longtime handler Shamron, the ruthless spymaster who calls on Allon when he needs something particularly dangerous carried out.Gabriel [...]

More reviews at TheBibliophage.Once again, Daniel Silva kept me on the edge of my seat with The English Assassin. Gabriel Allon leads a double life of art restorer and spy / intelligence officer / badass. He’s always getting caught up in righting the world’s wrongs. And, at fifty years old, he carries a lot of baggage. That’s a feeling I can relate to, although my baggage is certainly more benign.I’m determined to write reviews of this series without spoilers, but it’s not easy. Gabrie [...]

This is the 2nd Gabriel Allon novel and it is very good. The suspense and action levels are off the chart and Silva doesn't ask his readers to suspend disbelief. It could happen and when someone gets hurts - no miraculous healing. I even rooted for the Englishman, the assassin that Allon is after, because he showed some moral code about his assignments - that was an interesting twist to a villain. The last 40 pages were fast in wrapping up the story, maybe a little too fast for my reading taste [...]

The English Assassin is another fine novel. Daniel Silva provides the reader with his usual blend of action, excitement, intrigue, and plot twists -- all set within the historical context of the secret world of the Swiss banking system from WWII to the present. In a reprise of Gabriel Allon, the art restorer and sometimes Israeli spy from the Kill Artist, Silva spins a tale of a secret Swiss society, long-ago collaboration with Nazi Germany, and a quest to recover art treasures plundered by the [...]

Of the first three Gabriel Allon books that I have read (and loved all of them) The English Assassin is my favorite. There is a certain nuance to the storytelling where everything ultimately makes complete sense, but the twists and turns are completely unexpected. Gabriel's spycraft is as much intellectual as it is physical - and this is what makes these stories so gripping. He isn't just another superhero. He makes mistakes and he doesn't win every fight. But he perseveres and ultimately makes [...]

When Gabriel is called to Switzerland could he be going for more than a restoration job on a Raphael? This is a really great spy type of series that gives the reader just enough but does not leave a person all twisted up. I have read some spy type of novels that by the end I begin to to question if I am who I say I am and begin to doubt my own familial lineage. The other interesting aspect of this book, being the second in the series, is that a reader would be able to get along without having re [...]

I really enjoy Silva's Allon novels: exciting, intelligent spy thrillers. They have well-drawn characters and unpredictable twists. That said, the these twists sometimes aren't that convincing, but only in minor ways. In this novel, two of the characters have changes of heart that were a little too quick for my taste. I thought that the background drop of the collaboration of the Swiss with the Nazis during the war provided a good canvas for the plot of this story. The Gabriel Allon character is [...]

I enjoyed this second Gabriel Allon adventure more than the first one. For me, there is always a sort of rawness and violence to the stories which is too much, but it is also understandable given the type of story. What pleased me especially in this one was the character of the English Assassin, who in the end used his compassion and fairness not once, but twice! Gabriel ows him one Evm Peterson ended up being more noble than was expected of him and paid for it.A good read.Maria Carmo,Lisbon, 3 [...]

Daniel Silva is an excellent writer and I found this book to have interesting characters, with a fast-moving plot and lots of twists and turns. I enjoyed traveling through countries with the characters and learning lots of history along the way. The book hooked me from the start and had lots of action all the way through. I look forward to reading the next installment and I highly recommend this series to those who love action-packed spy novels.4.5 stars

This book is full of mysterious characters with several aliases that took be a bit to keep straight. Once I felt I had them understood, the book became entertaining and the story became more engrossing too. I did learn new things about Swiss "Neutrality"and Switzerland became a bit less like "Heidi" in the snow covered Alps in my mind. It is a worthwhile and enjoyable book.

Not as good as book one in the series, nor book 10 for that matter (I've only read them both). The set up is similar and as good and so is the middle of the story. Allon is impressive, as are all the Israeli secret agents. I love how they bring some justice to the holocaust villains/collaborators after all these years. And the picture Daniel Silva paints of Switzerland is so negative, I wonder if the Swiss actually took offense to this book. Sadly, the last part of the book feels contrived and i [...]